YOUR VIEW: Thinking outside the mall in Assonet

Sunday

May 27, 2007 at 12:10 AM

I arrived in Assonet in 1999, and what a town this is — a mix of old timers, some with ancestors going back to the 1600s, people of different ethnic backgrounds and incomes, and businesses mixed in with residential areas. It was the second settlement founded by the pilgrims after Plymouth, and it sometimes feels like I've been dropped into my third grade history book.

JEAN BRIGGS

I arrived in Assonet in 1999, and what a town this is — a mix of old timers, some with ancestors going back to the 1600s, people of different ethnic backgrounds and incomes, and businesses mixed in with residential areas. It was the second settlement founded by the pilgrims after Plymouth, and it sometimes feels like I've been dropped into my third grade history book.

It's not a suburban bedroom community for Boston, at least not yet, and it doesn't need a mega-mall anchored by huge box stores just like the ones found only a few miles away in all directions.

Assonet is called a peaceful "rural" area in all the promotional literature I've seen. Calling a place rural doesn't make it so if it's being sold off by developers in 1.7-acre lots with rules requiring a minimum number of square feet or roof lines, or if McMansions are sprouting up all over like weeds. There are alternatives to suburban living that foster community for a lifetime, such as intentional communities, new "urbanism," building for aging in place, having cluster and mixed-use zoning, and granting subsidies to farmers who resist selling their land to developers.

If Mr. Resendes must develop his land and the fly ash is in fact safe, I respectfully suggest that he, or someone, could build a community that would be a lasting legacy, with space for a small- to medium-sized grocery store (it would be a first, but Stop and Shop wouldn't lose money on one this near their warehouse) that could include a small post office and bank branch, with some housing clustered and outfitted so the elderly could remain in their communities, some expensive homes and some affordable townhouses or manufactured ones.

He, or someone, could leave open spaces for walking trails and animal habitats. On 44 acres, would the profit be as big as the current plan? I expect not.

Near our home are people who hang on to their farms when they could become rich by selling their land. I'm so grateful to them for the view this country soul gets to see each morning and evening. For cows and calves being raised the way they should be. For the smiles caused when we all have to stop our rushed mornings to wait for three pokey ducks to cross the road. When promotional materials are needed to show what our town is like, photographs of these farms are chosen, not pictures of malls.